Dear workshop community,
We will convene for the Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) next week on
Wednesday (9/19).
The speaker is* Aaron Kaufman * (Harvard PhD candidate; job market
candidate) who will be presenting his paper "An Automated Method to
Estimate Survey Question Bias" (paper link here
<https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/applied.stats.workshop-gov3009/files/kaufman_jmp_9_6_18.pdf>).
*Where:* CGIS Knafel Building, Room K354 (see this link
<https://map.harvard.edu/?bld=04471&level=9> for directions).
*When: *Wednesday, September 19th at 12 noon - 1:30 pm.
*Abstract: *Many survey researchers are interested in gauging public
support for government policy, but there is strong evidence that a
question’s wording affects responses to it. I develop the first automated
and scalable method to predict the magnitude and direction of the partisan
bias a question’s wording may impose on survey responses, and show using a
series of survey experiments that it outperforms public opinion scholars in
predicting that bias. Using a novel data set of almost one million survey
questions from 1997 to 2017, I then examine trends in partisan survey
question biases over time. I find that while questions related to economic
issues are relatively unbiased, questions related to Barack Obama become
steadily more conservatively biased from 2008 to 2017. Questions related to
abortion and immigration are generally conservative, while questions
related to healthcare and education are consistently liberal.
Substantively, my results suggest that measurements of American public
opinion are systematically biased; I discuss the implications of this
result for democratic representation. Methodologically, this paper opens up
new opportunities for studying ideology from text, and for improving survey
methodology and measurement in public opinion.
*All are welcome! Lunch is provided! *
Best,
Connor Jerzak
Applied Statistics Workshop -- Graduate Student Coordinator
An anonymous feedback form for the workshop can be found here at this link
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScp4lPVBtp4Akf6K6ggmfcTUSIUHEJX89-CU8HWrQPpe9pjTw/viewform?usp=sf_link>.
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